on the day that we went to meet with our elder union leader the sound of elmore james’ voice filled the silver, the sky is crying, see the tears roll down the street. we were drenched to the bone, rain telling us the way home. become rolling and one my daughters and sons. we flowed from each other.

we walked to the café on the corner above the river. above the record store, that we could feel say, come down to me, sainte-marie and seeger are waiting for you.

we gathered round for labor movement blues

we heard about the 1917 logger strike for the eight hour day – the workers blew whistles to each other through the woods when eight hours was up and it was time to stop working

the people who do the work should have the say on how the job should be done –

if people on the bottom were given authority they’d be making conscious decisions closer to the point of project.

like loggers realizing that clear cutting was destroying the land and they needed to use sustainable forestry practices

the elder union leader has seen many gains in the area of gender equality. she was once told by her boss, you women, don’t think, the computer will think for you.

women weren’t allowed to teach. got paid the lowest.

moon of maine

union of maine

st vincent millay

betsy sholl

take heart

direct us to use art for justice

Here is Utah Phillips singing “Ship gonna sail,” talking about all the progress we’ve made in labor and life – and how we can’t lose resolve. We’ve got to keep building the good ship that will sail us into a respectful, sustainable, equitable way of life. Even if we’ll never get to sail the ship, we must keep building anyway, and pass our tools onto the young.